Finally he asked, “How was your interview?”
“Interview, Mr. Cowens?”
“With Detective Zhong?”
“I didn’t . . .”
“Please. We’ve worked together for a long time, you and I. I have never thought of you in any way as stupid. Please don’t think that I am.”
She blushed – an unusual colour on the flawless Asian skin of her rounded cheeks.
“Fine, now I want you to get in touch with your contacts.”
Her eyes widened. “Contacts, Mr. Cowens?”
“Again, I ask you not to treat me as if I am stupid. I’ve known from the beginning that you have contacts. That everything you and I talk about ‘moves’ to other places. So I want you to convince your contacts that I have in my possession an original Manichaean scroll all the way from the Taklamakan Desert. You can do that, can’t you?”
The green tea arrived. She reached for the pot but he beat her to it and poured for her. As she brought the steaming liquid to her lips he said, “This is important to me. Understood?”
She nodded and said, “Dui.”
It was only at that point that Devil Robert realized he had conducted the entire conversation in Mandarin. He smiled.
She looked at him questioningly.
“How’s my Mandarin?” he asked in Mandarin.
“Getting better, Mr. Cowens. Getting much better.” She put her green tea down and stood.
“Won’t you stay to eat?”
“No, Mr. Cowens. If this is important to you, I need to start right away. I should have a response for you soon.”
He nodded and poured tea for himself as she left the restaurant.
Fong knew he was shouting into his cell phone but he couldn’t stop himself. When Lily finally got on the line she shouted right back at him, “How dare you order my forensic people around, who the hell do you . . .?”
“Where’s Xiao Ming!”
“With my mother as she . . .”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, every morning my mother . . .”
“Can you contact her, Lily?”
Suddenly there was fear in her voice as she said slowly, “Why?”
Fong paused. He heard Lily gasp. “Where does your mother usually take Xiao Ming, Lily?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Think!”
And Lily did. She began to reel off places and Fong relayed them to his officers. Within an hour more than 40 percent of the officers assigned to guard the Hua Shan Hospital were out on the streets looking for Fong and Lily’s baby.
Angel Michael arrived to pick up Xiao Ming. He carried a digitally doctored photo of the baby and the grandmother with him standing beside them, just in case he was challenged. But there was no need. The woman in charge of the daycare at the Children’s Palace was happy to see the handsome young man again. It crossed Angel Michael’s mind that what would really have pleased this woman was being touched the way his French teacher had made him touch her. Angel Michael breathed away the nausea that came with that thought and allowed a smile to his beautifully shaped lips. The lady smiled back at him and bobbed a bow.
As Angel Michael left the Children’s Palace, Xiao Ming began to struggle in his arms. She did not cry out. No. But she looked deep into his eyes. It almost spooked him.
Twenty minutes later, Fong ran into the Children’s Palace. Five minutes after that, Angel Michael entered the largest abortion facility in all of China – the Hua Shan Hospital. Xiao Ming was in his arms. He carried a shopping bag. No one stopped him or even asked him to present ID. What kind of bomber carried a baby?
With Xiao Ming in the crook of his arm he waited for a moment until the front reception desk was at its busiest then put the note on the counter and slipped back into the crowd. Ten minutes later, one of the three harried receptionists opened the envelope and shouted for a security guard.
Less than ninety seconds after that, Fong’s phone rang and he went pale.
“What?” demanded Lily.
“Another note at the Hua Shan Hospital.” He called his head of security. “Evacuate the hospital! Contact Wu Fan-zi!”
He looked back to Lily. She was ashen. “The man who wrote the note has Xiao Ming, doesn’t he?”
Fong nodded.
Suddenly Lily was screaming at him. “She’s your daughter, Fong. Do something. Do something!”
Angel Michael took advantage of the chaos of the Hua Shan Hospital’s third evacuation in four days to slip past the few remaining guards. Five minutes later, he entered the hospital’s sixth abortion surgery. He put Xiao Ming on the table, climbed up to the window, and grabbed the titanium cage with its grisly contents and the RDX explosive he’d stashed in the courtyard just outside. Back in the operating room he took out the complicated timing device he’d carried in the shopping bag and wired it to the explosive. Then he placed the titanium cage beneath the table and stood back to admire his handiwork. On the operating table, Xiao Ming lay very still, watching him. For a moment he paused, then he grabbed the girl and headed out into the gathering chaos. He dropped the remaining contents of the shopping bag as he did – decoy bombs.
As he rushed down the front steps of the hospital his cell phone rang. It wasn’t a familiar number. He punched his directory ID and it came up with a name that Angel Michael only vaguely recognized. It was a trader he had contacted six months ago, when he was first setting up operations in Shanghai. At that time he had been trolling for basic tradable objects but his list included an interest in any Manichaean writings.
He looked at the number again then at Xiao Ming.
“So, little one,” he said in Mandarin, “should I return this call or not?”
Xiao Ming looked at him closely. She noted the movement of his lips then did as she always did – she imitated what she saw. The man smiled at the baby, “Good time, bad time, opportunity only knocks once.” He punched the talk button.
Fong’s cell rang. “What?”
“It’s Robert Cowens. I believe I’ve made contact.”
“It’s too late.”
“For what?”
“Never mind.”
“What do you want me to do, Detective?”
Fong had no idea. Too many things were in motion. “Don’t do anything. No. Try to set up a meeting then get back to me.”
Fong hung up but his phone immediately rang again. “Zhong Fong.”
“We’re going in, Fong,” said Wu Fan-zi’s confident voice.
“Good.”
Wu Fan-zi hung up. Moments later it occurred to Fong that Wu Fan-zi had said “we.” Who the hell was the “we” part of “we”?
Angel Michael knew that without another diversion they may well have time to disarm the bomb despite its complex timing device and the decoys. He needed to cause a significant fuss to draw fire his way – looking at Xiao Ming he corrected himself, “our way.” Then it occurred to him. How simple. In a singlechild society, children are the most valuable of all commodities. And where were there many, many children in one place? The Children’s Palace . . . of course.
As Fong raced toward the Hua Shan Hospital his cell phone rang. It was the head of security at the Children’s Palace. A man was holding sixty-five children and their teacher hostage on the second floor of the building!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The cell phone broke up so badly that Wu Fan-zi couldn’t be sure he understood what Fong was saying – then it went dead. Anything could have interfered with the connection but Wu Fan-zi wondered if somehow it was his own anxiety that was causing it. He looked to Joan Shui at his side. He saw her caught within the thickness of his glass face shield. “Who else in the world can look good in bomb protective gear?” he wondered. Then another thought flitted, unwelcome, through his mind, “Am I going to lose her so soon?”